Best Liberal Quote of the Day: On The Environment "Unless we find a way to dramatically change our civilization and our way of thinking about the relationship between humankind and the earth, our children will inherit a wasteland." — Al Gore

Stupidest and/or Scariest Quote from the Right for the Day: On Bashing the Clintons "HIRE ROLLYE JAMESThe recent elimination of the Rollye James program from KLBJ-AM radio was actually a political assassination of sorts. The LBJ family media dynasty has been and continues to be built upon a liberal Democrat base, notwithstanding their profitable dabbling in conservative talk show programs (and hosts).

Rollye James had become a problem, not because of her flippantly satirical discussion of an extremely anti-Clinton bumper sticker, but because of her thinly-veiled on-air support of Republican candidates; husband, John Doggett (who testified against Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings), had been getting national television coverage as a reporter and local radio exposure guest-hosting shows on a competing Austin station.

I heard the offending program segment, which I found quite humorous in a sharply satirical vein, but perfectly understandable and acceptable. And nobody in the LBJ hierarchy has pulled the plug on the First Amendment until now, because the financial profits have outweighed the political costs.

Hopefully, some other local station will have the good sense and good fortune to hire Rollye James—and keep her. After all, sharp intellect, good humor and the courage not to genuflect to the status quo are rare in radio discourse these days. If Austin radio permanently loses such a talent as Rollye James, the community at large will suffer a "dumbing-down" of media quality." — Cliff Sparks, Travis County Republican Party Executive Committeeman. Letters, Austin American-Statesman, 11-1-96. {Letter was in response to editorial quote February 23 quote entry.}

Dumbest Thing Said for the Day: From the world of Sports "Sometimes big trees grow out of acorns—I think I heard that from a squirrel." — Jerry Coleman was an infielder for the Yankees (what is it about the Bronx Bombers that turned out such a raft of funny speakers?), and manager of the San Diego Padres. After playing, he made his mark as a radio and TV broadcaster, where his malapropisms, non sequiturs, and other goofs became legendary. Coleman is Hall of Shame member #8.

Americans have become so used to "stupid," they don't know how to require anything else.

Quote:

I cannot prove that reading for hours in a treehouse (which is what I was doing when I was 13) creates more informed citizens than hammering away at a Microsoft Xbox or obsessing about Facebook profiles. But the inability to concentrate for long periods of time -- as distinct from brief reading hits for information on the Web -- seems to me intimately related to the inability of the public to remember even recent news events. It is not surprising, for example, that less has been heard from the presidential candidates about the Iraq war in the later stages of the primary campaign than in the earlier ones, simply because there have been fewer video reports of violence in Iraq. Candidates, like voters, emphasize the latest news, not necessarily the most important news.

No wonder negative political ads work. "With text, it is even easy to keep track of differing levels of authority behind different pieces of information," the cultural critic Caleb Crain noted recently in the New Yorker. "A comparison of two video reports, on the other hand, is cumbersome. Forced to choose between conflicting stories on television, the viewer falls back on hunches, or on what he believed before he started watching."

As video consumers become progressively more impatient with the process of acquiring information through written language, all politicians find themselves under great pressure to deliver their messages as quickly as possible -- and quickness today is much quicker than it used to be. Harvard University's Kiku Adatto found that between 1968 and 1988, the average sound bite on the news for a presidential candidate -- featuring the candidate's own voice -- dropped from 42.3 seconds to 9.8 seconds. By 2000, according to another Harvard study, the daily candidate bite was down to just 7.8 seconds.

The shrinking public attention span fostered by video is closely tied to the second important anti-intellectual force in American culture: the erosion of general knowledge.

Harvard University's Kiku Adatto found that between 1968 and 1988, the average sound bite on the news for a presidential candidate -- featuring the candidate's own voice -- dropped from 42.3 seconds to 9.8 seconds. By 2000, according to another Harvard study, the daily candidate bite was down to just 7.8 seconds.

What I find ironic is that this bastion of higher education, Harvard, is itself one of the sources of the problem. We should never let ourselves forget that while millions of American college students have busted every available brain cell to earn their education and grades, the war criminal chimp in the White House received "Gentlemen's C's" at Harvard, where his true major was alcohol and drugs. I am sure his business partners were relieved when Shrub entered politics because they would no longer lose money bailing him out from one disastrous company failure after another. These NeoCon pinheads must really have a chuckle over the fact that the war criminal's name should be forever tied with "No Child Left Behind." That average of 7.8 seconds is skewed up by the Chimp's opponents' sound bites, he has trouble stringing together a coherent sentence of more than "I want my mommy" or "Let's bomb them into the Stone Age."

ON EDIT:

I wonder if a case could be made for a class action lawsuit against Harvard for malpractice; they have foisted upon the American electorate this smirking war criminal. Maybe not, they did after all expel Dick Cheney.

_________________“I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a Democrat.”-Will Rogers

I wonder if a case could be made for a class action lawsuit against Harvard for malpractice; they have foisted upon the American electorate this smirking war criminal. Maybe not, they did after all expel Dick Cheney.

Wow! No wonder he hides all the time. Afraid people will find out all he has is evil, no brains to go with it. Considering the damage he has done, I hate to think of what he could do if he were intelligent.

They both are good examples of not being able to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear...in this case, it would be a BOAR's ear. No, wait...that crone who is Bush's mother is definitely a sow's ear. Cheney didn't have a mother. He must have been found under a rotten cabbage in a rotten cabbage patch.

_________________

"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman

Wow! No wonder he hides all the time. Afraid people will find out all he has is evil, no brains to go with it. Considering the damage he has done, I hate to think of what he could do if he were intelligent.

The unfortunate thing for the country is that Cheney is evil, smart, ambitious, lazy and a coward. Going to college for him was NOT to get an education but to get a draft deferment. While he didn't have the connections for the "Gentleman's C," he did have connections with his local draft board that kept extending his draft deferments even after flunking out. Both he and Georgie the war criminal were strong supporters of the Vietnam diabolical as long as it didn't include putting their own lives on the line. Both are longtime chicken hawks. Another thing they both have in common is alcoholism. Both show the classic signs of bi-polar disorder except that most manic-depressives have a raw intelligence that the Chimp rarely exhibits. It may be that all that alcohol just burned out so many synapses that he will never show any. In any event both are used to an ill-deserved sense of entitlement that has brought the country to its collective knees.

_________________“I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a Democrat.”-Will Rogers

Apparently I don't really want to understand just how evil people in our 'superior' country are. I remember people like FDR--that is who I got my political conditioning from.

I know FDR was not the perfect person we thought at that time, he had all the human flaws other humans have. As someone who loved power, he had to make a lot of choices 'the people' would have cringed over. But in the big picture, he still did a lot of good for a lot of people.

These people in the White House do nothing good for most people. They have their cronies and aside from that, I believe they have nothing but contempt for ordinary humans. That they are still worshiped by so many (around here, it is the norm) sickens me. It says to me that the people in this area share Bush and Cheney's contempt for ordinary people, including my clueless neighbors themselves.

Some people around the country seem to be catching on. I wish that were happening here too.

Quote:

Cheney is evil, smart, ambitious, lazy and a coward

And hanging on by a thread, but with the best medical care money can buy--while children go without even the most simplistic care because there is no money and wishing doesn't make disease or handicaps go away.